I really like how you do the details to make the situation so much more plausible and real, as in how you use acronyms like GAT and have discussions about the testing being a government plot - too real. I especially like the model and her expressions which suited the dialog very well.
Realistic? I dunno - the Government receive an application for something on Monday and have it processed correctly by Friday? Totally implausible. A realistic story would have another panels in the middle with the model screaming down a telephone at some poor nebbish in a call centre in Aberystwyth. Unfortunately I didn't have the appropriate images for that bit so it had to get cut. Glad you liked it!
LOL! In the US, we have the pat phrase "I am from the government and I am here to help", which is an oxymoron of the third kind, so, yeah, I get it. To add to that, a "plot by the government" is most likely doomed to fail for ineptitude, budgetary overruns and would subsequently be exposed in the press, but in today's political climate, the exposure would be denied as "fake news" and the plot would then morph into some kind of altered form of what was intended. ~Lake
Yeah; I think Brits are a bit less suspicious of the government than in the US - one of the side effects of Universal Healthcare, I guess. I actually find something a bit reassuring about how shambolic it all is, for the reasons you allude to. Any government that feels the need for a top down managerial reorganisation every five years to fix the mess they made with the last top down managerial reorganisation is probably too inept to build sub-orbital mind control lasers....
Well, women are a lot less uppity in the ways your elites dislike, but this kind of test would likely only "weed out" the less revolutionary guys anyway.
And statistics should make it very very obvious if this gender test is slanted.
Ultimately this might either be some progressive agenda gone way over the top or some conservative backlash -> Well give those college kids that gender shit they want, but the result gotta be binary.
Anyway, I wonder how we'd go at this if we wanted to make some actually good policy including this kind of test. Maybe make everyone attend transition class/counseling that scores as the opposite gender/gender neutral on this test? It'd be less transition now! And more go get some counseling and think/decide if a sex change wouldn't be good for you.
Depending on how reversible sex-changes are there could also be semi-compulsive other-sex trial runs of sort.
I dunno, some girls can really fuck shit up. Look at those suffragettes for example. Mass feminisation as a step towards a dictatorship might fail in some really, really interesting ways. Some PR issues might arise if there's daily footage of pretty young women getting beaten with clubs (as opposed to nasty smelly hippy young men). I see your point about how this could be a good thing, but it'd have to be a lot less coercive. More like sex ed in school (gender ed?). I'm not sure gender segregated universities could ever be a good thing, that does seem to an idea that got abandoned in the early 20th Century... Glad you liked it!
Heh, I didn't think about the segregated universities. Yeah those are bullshit. The spirit of a university is free information exchange amongst scientists and students. Segregation is very much against that.
Gender-ed could sort of work I assume. But I don't think there's enough gender queer people to actually justify having this as a regular thing at every school. Maybe one or two schools in a city with that kind of focus?
Queer high, the school that also offers gender-ed in their curriculum. If you're tested as gender-queer you're strongly suggested to attend these schools I suppose.
Gender Ed could serve two purposes though- a 'see how the other half live' class for the cis-gender kids, and a test-drive program for the genderqueer ones. The first part is a pretty major trope in TG fiction - including my own - and might make some sense in the real world. For what its worth, IIRC, 'Queer High' actually exists. I think it's in New York. I think it might be called Harvey Milk High School or something like that. I always wondered what it'd like to be the one pair of bisexual kids in a mixed gender relationship there. Would they be tolerated and accepted in the spirit of the place, or would biphobia kick in?
Yeah, but that kind of see how the other half lives is kinda silly all things considered. I mean if we look at it objectively the biggest differences are psychologically. Otherwise it'd effectively be a dress up class. It's not like we really have that big social differences between genders. (If I look at the actual differences in lifestyle between me and my sister it was always that she liked watching soap operas on TV and was sports focused, while I'd play more computer either alone or with my friends)
It'd ultimately be a huge waste of time for anyone not gender queer. I mean in case of the boys they'd get a "I get to paint my nails and face without shame" opportunity out of this, but in case of the girls I've got no clue.
Though considering how many female writers seem to lack understanding of the male mind (like you know we've got other motivations than being bad-boys, white knights or creeps) maybe it would make some sense. I don't know.
The problem with the class set-up would be that it might be missing the point if you did it to the non-queer kids. They'd actually need to be immersed in female/male groups to actually experience the differences. Something you can't achieve if you go for a class transformation of sorts.
Biphobia is seriously a thing? So we accept homosexuals now, but are creeped out by bisexuals? The fuck?
Hmm... I thought I'd replied to your comments about 'see how the other half live'. Oh well. So... there's some debate about how much difference the differences in brain anatomy and biochemistry make to the differences between men and women. I'd tend to say that these things are overstated and largely drowned out by individual differences. That is to say, sure men are taller and stronger and more aggressive, but there are a lot of women who are taller, stronger and more competitive than a lot of men. The main difference, I'd say, would be social. As you say, they'd need to be immersed in male/female groups. Perhaps if you did an exchange with another school where say, 10% of the class swapped schools, and half of the swappees had changed gender and half hadn't, so you couldn't really tell which were the real boys/girls and everybody treated them as their nominal gender? Sounds complicated. But...eh. Could be worth it. As for the writing thing... it goes both ways. Have a wee google for "male writers writing female characters meme" and you'll see.
Heh yeah, male writers tend to be somewhere close to the extremes of guy with boobs or (repressed) nymph. But I think it's more glaring when you're actually reading it and think "I wouldn't act like this, my friends wouldn't act like this, why are you only using sexual stereotypes".
Anyway, that's kinda why I don't think this kind of gender class is very realistic. It'd be a hell to organize to give people the experience. So the likely solution would be to just do it for kids that are inclined that way anyway. And to find those you'd use a gender test I suppose.
Gonna think for a wee bit about the majority of your post before responding.... But yes, I can confirm from personal experience that biphobia is indeed a thing - and not just from straight people. We're greedy and/or indecisive. (I actually am pretty indecisive, which makes the stereotype a billion times worse). And I've known straight and gay people to say (in one case a person I was kind of hitting on :( ) that 'oh I could never date a bisexual person. If you're interested, see: https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2017/10/07/society-failing-bisexual-people-just-every-way-one-man-wants-change/ and http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/bisexual-people-mental-health-risk-lgbt-heterosexual-issue-a7933806.html
You guys are the bane of jealous partners I suppose. No one is safe... But yeah, that kind of thing is really shitty for you.
But yeah, it sounds like the super stupid "now we can't be shitty to the gays anymore, need another group to torment" kind of thinking.
Like the ways the Republicans in the US have started fucking with transgenders. Now that they lost the fight against the gays they need to start up against another already disadvantaged group.
To be fair the worst treatment I ever received in terms of my sexuality was from straight people who lumped me in with the gays. Gay biphobia at it's worst is far from homophobia at it's worst. There aren't (AFAIK) gay gangs out there beating the shit out of bisexuals.
I really like how you do the details to make the situation so much more plausible and real, as in how you use acronyms like GAT and have discussions about the testing being a government plot - too real. I especially like the model and her expressions which suited the dialog very well.
ReplyDelete~CL
Realistic? I dunno - the Government receive an application for something on Monday and have it processed correctly by Friday? Totally implausible. A realistic story would have another panels in the middle with the model screaming down a telephone at some poor nebbish in a call centre in Aberystwyth.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I didn't have the appropriate images for that bit so it had to get cut.
Glad you liked it!
LOL! In the US, we have the pat phrase "I am from the government and I am here to help", which is an oxymoron of the third kind, so, yeah, I get it. To add to that, a "plot by the government" is most likely doomed to fail for ineptitude, budgetary overruns and would subsequently be exposed in the press, but in today's political climate, the exposure would be denied as "fake news" and the plot would then morph into some kind of altered form of what was intended.
Delete~Lake
Yeah; I think Brits are a bit less suspicious of the government than in the US - one of the side effects of Universal Healthcare, I guess. I actually find something a bit reassuring about how shambolic it all is, for the reasons you allude to. Any government that feels the need for a top down managerial reorganisation every five years to fix the mess they made with the last top down managerial reorganisation is probably too inept to build sub-orbital mind control lasers....
DeleteLOL^10^10
Delete~C
Well, women are a lot less uppity in the ways your elites dislike, but this kind of test would likely only "weed out" the less revolutionary guys anyway.
ReplyDeleteAnd statistics should make it very very obvious if this gender test is slanted.
Ultimately this might either be some progressive agenda gone way over the top or some conservative backlash -> Well give those college kids that gender shit they want, but the result gotta be binary.
Anyway, I wonder how we'd go at this if we wanted to make some actually good policy including this kind of test. Maybe make everyone attend transition class/counseling that scores as the opposite gender/gender neutral on this test? It'd be less transition now! And more go get some counseling and think/decide if a sex change wouldn't be good for you.
Depending on how reversible sex-changes are there could also be semi-compulsive other-sex trial runs of sort.
Thank you for this great caption,
Beyogi
I dunno, some girls can really fuck shit up. Look at those suffragettes for example. Mass feminisation as a step towards a dictatorship might fail in some really, really interesting ways. Some PR issues might arise if there's daily footage of pretty young women getting beaten with clubs (as opposed to nasty smelly hippy young men).
ReplyDeleteI see your point about how this could be a good thing, but it'd have to be a lot less coercive. More like sex ed in school (gender ed?). I'm not sure gender segregated universities could ever be a good thing, that does seem to an idea that got abandoned in the early 20th Century...
Glad you liked it!
Heh, I didn't think about the segregated universities. Yeah those are bullshit. The spirit of a university is free information exchange amongst scientists and students. Segregation is very much against that.
DeleteGender-ed could sort of work I assume. But I don't think there's enough gender queer people to actually justify having this as a regular thing at every school. Maybe one or two schools in a city with that kind of focus?
Queer high, the school that also offers gender-ed in their curriculum. If you're tested as gender-queer you're strongly suggested to attend these schools I suppose.
Gender Ed could serve two purposes though- a 'see how the other half live' class for the cis-gender kids, and a test-drive program for the genderqueer ones. The first part is a pretty major trope in TG fiction - including my own - and might make some sense in the real world.
ReplyDeleteFor what its worth, IIRC, 'Queer High' actually exists. I think it's in New York. I think it might be called Harvey Milk High School or something like that. I always wondered what it'd like to be the one pair of bisexual kids in a mixed gender relationship there. Would they be tolerated and accepted in the spirit of the place, or would biphobia kick in?
Yeah, but that kind of see how the other half lives is kinda silly all things considered. I mean if we look at it objectively the biggest differences are psychologically. Otherwise it'd effectively be a dress up class. It's not like we really have that big social differences between genders. (If I look at the actual differences in lifestyle between me and my sister it was always that she liked watching soap operas on TV and was sports focused, while I'd play more computer either alone or with my friends)
ReplyDeleteIt'd ultimately be a huge waste of time for anyone not gender queer. I mean in case of the boys they'd get a "I get to paint my nails and face without shame" opportunity out of this, but in case of the girls I've got no clue.
Though considering how many female writers seem to lack understanding of the male mind (like you know we've got other motivations than being bad-boys, white knights or creeps) maybe it would make some sense. I don't know.
The problem with the class set-up would be that it might be missing the point if you did it to the non-queer kids. They'd actually need to be immersed in female/male groups to actually experience the differences. Something you can't achieve if you go for a class transformation of sorts.
Biphobia is seriously a thing? So we accept homosexuals now, but are creeped out by bisexuals? The fuck?
Hmm... I thought I'd replied to your comments about 'see how the other half live'. Oh well.
DeleteSo... there's some debate about how much difference the differences in brain anatomy and biochemistry make to the differences between men and women. I'd tend to say that these things are overstated and largely drowned out by individual differences. That is to say, sure men are taller and stronger and more aggressive, but there are a lot of women who are taller, stronger and more competitive than a lot of men.
The main difference, I'd say, would be social. As you say, they'd need to be immersed in male/female groups. Perhaps if you did an exchange with another school where say, 10% of the class swapped schools, and half of the swappees had changed gender and half hadn't, so you couldn't really tell which were the real boys/girls and everybody treated them as their nominal gender?
Sounds complicated. But...eh. Could be worth it.
As for the writing thing... it goes both ways. Have a wee google for "male writers writing female characters meme" and you'll see.
Heh yeah, male writers tend to be somewhere close to the extremes of guy with boobs or (repressed) nymph. But I think it's more glaring when you're actually reading it and think "I wouldn't act like this, my friends wouldn't act like this, why are you only using sexual stereotypes".
DeleteAnyway, that's kinda why I don't think this kind of gender class is very realistic. It'd be a hell to organize to give people the experience. So the likely solution would be to just do it for kids that are inclined that way anyway. And to find those you'd use a gender test I suppose.
Gonna think for a wee bit about the majority of your post before responding....
ReplyDeleteBut yes, I can confirm from personal experience that biphobia is indeed a thing - and not just from straight people. We're greedy and/or indecisive. (I actually am pretty indecisive, which makes the stereotype a billion times worse). And I've known straight and gay people to say (in one case a person I was kind of hitting on :( ) that 'oh I could never date a bisexual person.
If you're interested, see:
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2017/10/07/society-failing-bisexual-people-just-every-way-one-man-wants-change/
and
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/bisexual-people-mental-health-risk-lgbt-heterosexual-issue-a7933806.html
Well that's a pretty shitty situation. :(
DeleteYou guys are the bane of jealous partners I suppose. No one is safe... But yeah, that kind of thing is really shitty for you.
But yeah, it sounds like the super stupid "now we can't be shitty to the gays anymore, need another group to torment" kind of thinking.
Like the ways the Republicans in the US have started fucking with transgenders. Now that they lost the fight against the gays they need to start up against another already disadvantaged group.
To be fair the worst treatment I ever received in terms of my sexuality was from straight people who lumped me in with the gays. Gay biphobia at it's worst is far from homophobia at it's worst. There aren't (AFAIK) gay gangs out there beating the shit out of bisexuals.
Delete